Sharing ideas to shape the future of community engagement

City of Newcastle (CN) will bring together 100 people of all walks of life to help shape how the community's voice can best be heard to guide the city's future. 

'Your Newcastle, Your Voice' is a public workshop to be held at Wallsend Library on 15 October as an initiative to inform CN's new four-year Community Engagement Strategy. 

Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes said CN's approach to engagement was based on inclusiveness, transparency, and responsiveness and the new strategy would build on this to ensure all Novocastrians feel a part of the Council decision making process. 

"By involving the community in shaping our community engagement strategy, CN will better understand how the community want to be engaged but also if there are barriers to participating in providing feedback that will help us adapt our approach," Cr Nelmes said. 

"We are committed to genuine consultation beyond any statutory requirements because we recognise the immense value of engaging early with the community to achieve better planning outcomes." 

Earlier this year, CN released its Community Strategic Plan, Newcastle 2040, which was developed based on the input of 4,500 people from a broad representation of the community who shared their aspirations and priorities for Newcastle's future. 

"Whether developing key strategies like Newcastle 2040, or major projects like Newcastle Ocean Baths upgrade, we achieve better outcomes with the community actively engaging in decision-making," Cr Nelmes said. 

"We want all members of our community to have the opportunity to shape the future of this city and through the 'Your Newcastle, Your Voice' workshop we will hear directly from the community about the best ways to achieve this." 

Using a series of past project case studies, the 'Your Newcastle, Your Voice' workshop will seek feedback from community participants on what has been effective and where CN can improve engagement with the community. 

The 'Your Newcastle, Your Voice' community workshop will be held on Saturday 15 October from 10am to 1pm at Wallsend Library. The community can express their interest to participate in the workshop via City of Newcastle's website.